There’s a saying that goes, “Success is the sum of many parts.” We all know that it’s not really possible to say “success” and leave out any other part of our life.
Success should be holistic.
It’s not just about the money. It’s not just about fame and glory. It’s not just about being in control of our life, or even being able to control what happens to us. It’s about being able to make a difference and that’s what Jeff Levine is all about.
Jeff aka “Mr. Terrific” is a 7 times Amazon #1 best-selling author and TV Host on JD3TV. In this episode, Rachel and Jeff will reveal the secret to holistic success. They also talk about the power of the mind in creating the results we want, the importance of persistence, how to improve our self-image, the power of visualization, how to use our mental capacity to the full, and how reprogramming our subconscious can change our reality.
“The true success in life is not financial. The true success in life is the person that cares about everybody else, that gives back, that makes a difference.” -Jeff Levine
Episode Highlights:
01:32 Break the Terror Barriers
06:37 The Importance of Persistence
11:35 The Secret to Holistic Success
14:34 How to Improve Your Image
18:14 The Mind: Law of Attraction
21:27 The Power of Visualization
28:30 Make Things Real by Reprogramming Your Subconscious Mind
31:51 CAN is the Answer
Resources:
Book
- The Power of a Millionaire Mindset; From Lack to Abundance by Jeff Levine
- The 8 Miracle Money-Making Beliefs of the Super Rich: Financial Freedom for a Lifetime by Jeff Levine
Success is not success unless it is meaningful. Discover the secret to holistic success with Rachel and 7 times Amazon #1 best-selling author and TV Host, “Mr. Terrific”, Jeff Levine. #HowToMakeYourMark #FindingYourSignature #RachelBest… Click To Tweet
Quotes:
03:06 “When you read a book, you don’t read it once. You read it over and over and over until it becomes part of you. That’s when you own it.” -Jeff Levine
07:10 “If I let that ‘no’ continue, nothing new is going to happen.” -Jeff Levine
10:07 “It doesn’t matter how you start, but you must start.” -Jeff Levine
13:07 “The true success in life is not financial. The true success in life is the person that cares about everybody else, that gives back, that makes a difference.” -Jeff Levine
19:13 “It’s a process. It’s not perfection, it takes time. But through repetition, you can do it.” -Jeff Levine
23:43 “Every morning above ground is a terrific day, and the rest of the day is a bonus. Because if you don’t wake up, you don’t need a bonus.” -Jeff Levine
26:41 “Imagination is your power. But it’s not your power until you use it.” -Jeff Levine
32:10 “The CAN is the answer, not the CAN’T.” -Jeff Levine
Meet Jeff:
Jeff Levine, AICP, is an urban planner who has worked in New England for 25 years. Currently, he is a faculty member of the Department of Urban Studies & Planning at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is also the Owner and Principal of Levine Planning Strategies, a small consulting firm that specializes in bridging the gap between the development community and city planners.
From 2012 to 2019, he was the Director of Planning & Urban Development for the City of Portland. In Portland, he oversaw the development of a new Comprehensive Plan (https://PortlandsPlan.me) and developed a set of tools to increase the development of low-income and workforce housing. Prior to working in Portland, Jeff worked in the City of Somerville (MA), where he developed plans for the redevelopment of the Assembly Square district into a new, mixed-use neighborhood centered on a new rapid transit station, as well as for the extension of an existing light rail line through the city. He also served as the Director of Planning & Community Development for the Town of Brookline (MA) where he worked on several affordable housing developments and completed their Comprehensive Plan.
Jeff also serves on the Greater Portland METRO Board of Directors, the GrowSmart Maine Board, and the Executive Committee of the Northern New England chapter of the American Planning Association.
Transcripts:
Rachel Best: Good afternoon, how are you guys doing? My name is Rachel Best. And this is my friend, Jeff. He and I had the pleasure of meeting him a few weeks ago at an event, and he has just such amazing charisma, inspiration and words of wisdom. And so I wanted to have him here today so that he can inspire you. Here’s just a little bit about Jeff. He is a Thinking Into Results Consultant, a seven times Amazon #1 Best Seller, he is a TV host on JD3TV, and he has recently just released two new books, The Power of a Millionaire Mindset and The 8 Power Beliefs of The Super Rich.
So Jeff, go ahead and introduce who you are, and what it is that you do.
Jeff Levine: Well, I am a former Tax Attorney and Certified Financial Planner. I was lucky enough that when I was at the gym one night, a lady tapped me on the shoulder and said, my partners want to buy you out, and they want to meet with you the next day. And I said, of course. And they offered me a great sum of money. I instantly signed on the dotted line. And then I said to myself, what’s next? See? Whenever you do something like that, you always have to look forward to something. So I look forward to retiring in four years. However, I was bored, Rachel, and I needed something else. And that’s something else turned out to be a phone call from a former associate named Don Boyer who was a great speaker, great writer, and did documentaries. And we connected, and we’ve been doing this since probably 2014. Helping people with speaking, with documentaries. We share inspirational, motivational, self improvement documentaries. So people can watch it over and oversee the key to anything. And they don’t teach you this anywhere, it is when you read a book, you don’t read it once. Now, that’s how I was taught. You read it over and over, and over until it becomes part of you. That’s when you own it. Same thing with documentaries. The first time you watch something, you go to a movie, you’ll remember parts of it. But you’ll also miss a lot of it. So over, and over, and over. And that’s what I call study.
And that’s what I teach now, a course called Thinking Into Results, Not working hard into results. You have a powerful mind, an incredible mind, and we don’t use it as much as we should. So I’m a big believer in teaching people, first of all, how to have goals. Not just any type of goal, big goals. And also, one of the biggest things that happens to people that stops them from being as successful as they could be is fear, False Evidence Appearing Real. And it appears real. So I help people work through it through this, I call it the terror barrier. Because once they reach this point, a terror, the fear comes up and they go back. What I do in coaching is I get them to move forward. Once they get through their fear, on the other side is the gold. The gold that they didn’t know is there. I’m also an author. I’ve shared a seven time Amazon #1 Best Seller, so I share my knowledge and teach. And it’s all about mindset in a weakened condition, Rachel. I remember in my business, well, who do I think I am? I can’t do that. That’s for somebody else. That won’t work? Well, if we think like that, it won’t work. Now, if we start thinking I can, I will, nothing’s gonna stop me. Success is right there. That’s what I call the gold on the other side of the terror barrier.
Rachel Best: That’s good. That’s good. There’s so many key points in what you just said. People do not use this powerful thing we have inside of the skull. We leave a lot of things that we can create into our life, and it all starts up here. And like you said, though fear is something that holds people back so many times, that they just don’t think that they can, or maybe they just don’t have the right people around them as well to trust in them and believe in them. There was one more thing that you said about the three feet, or the gold. I just recently read a book about the Three Feet From Gold, and just keep pushing because how discouraging and disappointing to know that you were only this far from hitting where you wanted to go. It flowed into your grip, but you walked away because you were too scared to keep pushing through.
Jeff Levine: Well, that’s one of my favorite books, Three Feet From Gold. It’s so easy to give up, Rachel. We have something called limiting beliefs. We’ve been conditioned. I call them paradigms that we’ve conditioned. I know I was, no, no, no, no, no. I can’t tell you how many thousands of times I heard that. Now, if I let that continue, nothing new is gonna happen. And we don’t know how close we are to that gold. And I think my favorite word is persistence. There was a famous coach by the name of Jimmy Valvano. He won the national championship way back. And then he had cancer, but as he was speaking before he died. I mean, he did a speech to raise money for cancer. His line was, never, never, never give up. Never, never give up. In this way, you’ll never be three feet from gold. You’ll be on the other side of the gold.
Rachel Best: That is some very good nuggets of wisdom right there. Never give up. That’s so good. I love that. I forgot to share with the audience to grab a pen and paper because you’re going to hear some more amazing nuggets of information that you’re definitely going to want to write down as well as go back and re-listen to this podcast, because you’re definitely like what Jeff said. With a book, a documentary, or a podcast, just go back and really listen because you might have missed something that he just said that could be that little pivotal moment in your life. That if you listen to it again and you catch it, you be like, oh, my gosh, that just changed my life. And it could be one word, it could be one setting, whatever. So I really encourage you guys to grab out your pen and paper, and also re-listen to this again. So Jeff, did you always want to write books? Or when did you start writing books?
Jeff Levine: Well, that’s a great question, Rachel. I never thought I would ever write a book. And this Don Boyer was a great influence for me. He had written many books, and we started doing some books together. And that’s when I started realizing, wow, there’s more knowledge in me than I know. There’s a guy named Wayne Dyer who I used to follow, and we don’t want to leave the music in us. We want to let people know, and I just started loving it. It’s one of those things that you don’t know you’re good at until you start doing it. I always get a lot of people talking to me that they want to write a book but they don’t know how. And the way I do it, I write an outline. It doesn’t matter how you start, but you must start. And then you’ll come to the next idea. The first book took two years to write for me because I didn’t know what I was doing. I didn’t have a mentor. Now, you have a mentor, you write an outline. And the way I do it, which might be different than everybody else is I dictate it. I’m much better at speaking than sitting there typing it. And that has been the way I’ve done every single book.
Rachel Best: That’s so awesome. So when was the first time you wrote a book? How many years ago?
Jeff Levine: Well, that would be around 2014.
Rachel Best: So 8 years ago is when you wrote your first book.
Jeff Levine: Yes. And then one thing about Don Boyer is, once you’re done with one, you have to start the next.
Rachel Best: And now, look at your seven times author on Amazon and release two more new books. I love how you said that about we all have the music, don’t take it to the grave with us. Like you said, you didn’t even know you had all that wisdom in you. But there was, and now you’re sharing it with the world. And now it’s here forever. All your knowledge and wisdom is here forever.
Jeff Levine: Well, the mission came to me when I was brought up. We didn’t have a lot of money. My father worked seven jobs, part time jobs, and we still didn’t have enough money. And when I needed something for my health, my parents said to me, we can’t afford that. And that’s when I said to myself, that will never happen to me again. I was on a mission. I went to law school, I went to an extra year of law school for tax law, and worked for the top tax and financial planning firm in the country. And once I went into practice, I said that I am going to help all these people that don’t know a lot about finance. Make them very successful, not only monetarily, but I’m very holistic. Making sure their health is good. Making sure their relationships are good. Making sure they have physical control of their bodies. And that’s working out, eating properly. And spiritual. I’m very spiritual. Because one day, I sat in my office and I had a successful year, but I wasn’t happy, I wasn’t fulfilled, I wasn’t holistic. And that’s when I said, I’m going to work on all these different areas. And the true success in life is not really financial. The true success in life is the person that cares about everybody else that gives back, that makes a difference. And I do all those, I give back. I’m very charitably oriented. I care about everybody else. I want to make everybody else successful. I want to go out there and make millions. Hear me, listen to me, and change their mindset so they also can be successful.
Rachel Best: Yeah. That’s so good. This whole podcast is about making your mark in the world, and so that is absolutely leaving your mark in the world. How amazing you made that decision. You’re like, no, that’s never gonna happen. And it all takes that one decision that can be pivotal in your life, and you just went after it, and you’re making a mark in the world. And so what would you say? Share with us what is one obstacle that you’ve had that you’ve gotten over? And what did you learn from it?
Jeff Levine: That’s a great question, Rachel. And this is when, probably most people don’t think about self image. And just for our viewers, we can’t outperform our self image. We are going to stay with our self image. So what I teach is how to improve your self image and you have to lift yourself up. It is so easy in this world, from negative people, negative news, just things aren’t going well for you. And I love this, that the other side of a lemon is lemonade. The other side of the clouds, above the clouds is always the sun. So we have a different perspective. I think that’s one of the most important things. When I have a challenge, I always say to myself, who would somebody else who’s successful who I know? How would they deal with this? And a lot of times, we’re so close to the situation that we can’t see it. It’s called blind sighted. There’s a blind part of you. And when you go into perception, you are able to perceive it in a different way. But even more important is visualization. I used my imagination all day before this call. I imagined it going beautifully with a great host, and it is going to be beautiful because I’m sharing my heart, I’m not sharing my head.
Rachel Best: So good. So good. I love that. That’s so amazing. So tell me, what is the best advice that you’ve ever received?
Jeff Levine: Well, that’s a great question also. And this happened when I went to a financial planning meeting and I saw this name Brian Tracy was the last speaker. Now Brian Tracy has a motivational speaker which I had no idea. Now, I was brought up in a negative world. It was always, no, you can’t. Who do you think we are? The Rockefellers. Money was tight. And he got up. I remember this as clear as it can be. And he was the last speaker at 4:00 o’clock, and he’s supposed to be done at 5:30. He started talking about positivity. I went to the person next to me after five minutes and asked them if this was real. I had never heard positive words up until that day, and I just could not stop listening. I remember halfway through, I had to go to the bathroom very badly. However, I wasn’t getting up. It was like a new breath of fresh air. And as soon as the seminar was over, I bought everything he had. Back then, it was really cheap. He had three cassettes for $100. He had books for $8 and $10. I devoured myself in his works. He changed my mindset that day forever.
Rachel Best: How old were you when you went to that?
Jeff Levine: 35. And let me tell you, I will never forget Brian Tracy in my whole life. He was my first mentor. And in five minutes, he changed my life. I’ve been on the positive trail ever since it’s a mission with me. And I need more and more people to think better. That’s why I teach this course Thinking Into Results. With great thinking, you’re gonna have great results. A lot better than a negative thinking that doesn’t help you. You attract more than that. There’s a famous movie, The Secret. When you think by the law of attraction, you’re gonna get negative things coming to you. When you think positively, you’re gonna get more positive things. And my goal is for you to be thinking almost all the time positively. It’s a process. It’s not perfection, it takes time. But through repetition, you can do it.
Rachel Best: Yeah. I always like to say that it’s kind of like a boomerang. So whatever you put out, you’re going to get back. Just like that. That boomerang just keeps on going back and bringing it back to you.
Jeff Levine: That’s exactly what happens. For my first 35 years, nothing happened. Even when I went into business five years before Brian Tracy came into my life. I made no money. I couldn’t take a salary. Here I am with all this great education. But when you have negative thinking, you get negative results. As soon as I came back from Brian Tracy’s meeting, my business improved, and then improved. The more I read, the more I listened, the more I watched, my business just took off because I was a different person.
Rachel Best: Yeah. I kind of want to touch on a couple of things that you said because I forget what the number is, maybe to the age of two, how many times we hear the word NO. It’s a lot because little kids, they’re learning not to touch things. You’re like, no, no, no, no. They’re always being told no. And so then, that just embedded in our brain. Another thing is that you are 35 years old, and so it doesn’t matter. Just as long as you start, start making a change and an impact. You were talking about studying. Not just not just reading a book, but actually studying it. And that’s how you implement it, right? When you read it over, and over, and over, you start implementing those things. You said about this visualization, share with us a little bit about that.
Jeff Levine: Visualization, I call them imagination, same thing, is the most powerful thing we have. It’s called the mental faculty. And when you use it, see what we don’t know is that when you imagine things, your subconscious mind is where everything happens. I Don’t know if it’s real or not. So when you do that imagination, you’re printing new images into your mind, and they don’t know if it’s real or not. So it just keeps going in. The more you do it, the more you’re imprinting. So every day, I use it. I actually have a script of the perfect life I want, and I imagined it every three hours. Just imagine how many times in a week, in a month. And all of a sudden, I become that. I remember going to a studio a couple of months ago, actually a month ago, and I did my first television show. Now, I haven’t done it. But in my imagination, I had. And it went perfectly. I also was filming for a movie, a documentary called Beyond Limitations. Now, the producer of that has shared with me that it usually takes many, many hours to do it right. In 20 minutes, we were done. I had imagined it going perfectly beforehand. Our mind is so powerful, we just don’t use it. I highly recommend that if you’re not using imagination, start using it. In the morning, I see my perfect day. And almost every day is perfect. And one of my famous things I do in the morning, and I tell everything, I’m called Mr. Terrific. And every morning, above ground is a terrific day, and the rest of the day is a bonus. Because if you don’t wake up, you don’t need a bonus.
Rachel Best: So if somebody wanted to start using their visualization and their imagination, using their brain in a good way, what are some of the steps that you would share with them? What would that look like for that?
Jeff Levine: What you want to do first of all, and the magic is being in a relaxed state. I have no lights on when I do it. I’m in my bed, totally quiet. All doors are closed. I just picture that perfect day or from doing a podcast with Rachael Best. I see that done beforehand. I sort of went perfectly. Everything was going great. And guess what happens? It happens. Yeah, go on. Great, cause your mind is so powerful. Imagination is the most powerful thing we can do, but we’re not taught this, Rachel. I never heard about this until a few years back, a few years ago. And the other good thing I do is I do a health and wellness meditation in the morning, 11 minutes, and I just shoot forward. My day is starting because I’m so relaxed, and I’m putting good things in my mind. And whenever we put out good things, good things come out. What we usually do is sensory factors, and that’s the smell, the taste. There’s five or six of them. But the bottom line is, that’s how the outside world gets into us. Well, all we have to do is do it by mental faculties, and they are my favorite for perception, imagination. There is a reason that’s thinking properly, the desire to do it, intuition and memory. Now, let me share a tip on memory. Only remember good things that have happened to you. But one that most of us do, is not so good. So we have a great memory, use it for positivity, not negativity.
Rachel Best: Yeah. Yeah. Those are some really good words of wisdom to just keep being positive. And that’s why you’re doing so well, and your things are happening just the way you’ve imagined it.
Jeff Levine: Well, the greatest secret that I’ve ever learned is that imagination is your power. But it’s not your power, Rachel, until you use it.
Rachel Best: Yeah. I learned a few years ago about the subconscious mind. I didn’t even know there was a conscious mind, subconscious mind, and it fascinated me. I’ve been on this journey learning. And one of those things that you talked about, I’ve watched the movie and read some of the book, the power of the unconscious, subconscious mind is always awake. And that’s why it’s so important to, what are you putting into you even if you’re not really aware of what’s going on your unconscious mind remembers everything. And it’s so powerful. I’m very cautious of what I put inside, what I listen or what I see because it doesn’t know that conviction. And so that was one of the most fascinating things to me about the unconscious mind is it does it, it only knows what you tell it. It does not know back from fiction, it only knows what you tell it. Even people speaking to me, I make sure that if it’s not in alignment with what I believe in the thoughts and the positivity that I keep in my mind, then I get rid of it very quickly. Because if we let it stay planted there, then it just grows. I’m so glad you brought that up because it’s a fascinating subconscious mind. Just a fascinating, fascinating thing. As well as using your imagination. We are given an imagination for a reason so why do we not use it?
Jeff Levine: Well, we’ve never been told how powerful it is and what it can do for us. And when you talk about the subconscious mind, the key to reprogramming you, we’ve been programmed with no, no, no. Now, it is our turn to program with yes, yes, yes. And the more you do it, it seeps into that subconscious mind. And one day, it becomes real for you. And you don’t know why you always keep doing it every day. I’m in the study, but I’m repeating my affirmations, I’m repeating my life story that I want to have over and over, and then I see it. And the most amazing things happen. That’s all I can tell the viewers. The most amazing things happen.
Rachel Best: Yeah, yeah, that’s so awesome. It’s so awesome when I started doing these things like you’re talking about. When things started popping up, I’m like, oh, my gosh. It got to the point that I was just thinking about it. I’m like, oh, my gosh, these things are happening and I just thought about it. I’m always, like you said, I’m thinking it, I’m saying it, I’m speaking it, I’m reading it, I’m writing it. I’m doing all these things and then it just starts happening. And at first, it’s like, whoa, what in the world. But then it’s really, really cool when you start to see all these amazing things just start happening around you.
Jeff Levine: Well, that’s why you have to guard your mind. We have a choice every day. What we let into our mind, we really have to guard it. Because it’s so easy living in the environment we live in to let the negative in. And when you do that, it goes in and stays in. So the most important thing for people to do is to guard it, there’s nothing else. That’s the thing that’s going to make the difference, and you have control over. Remember, we have control. We have the right to let it in or not let it in. And like on a computer, I press the delete button when it’s something that I don’t want.
Rachel Best: Used all the words right out of my brain. I was thinking, control all and delete. Because our brains are like, did you know that the computer was modeled after the human brain? Did you know that?
Jeff Levine: No, I didn’t.
Rachel Best: I was researching it just recently and looking up some stuff, and it said that the computer processor was actually modeled off of the human brain.
Jeff Levine: Wow, you taught me something today. I had no idea.
Rachel Best: Yeah, it’s amazing. So anyways, we’re coming up to the end here, so I just have one more question for you. What is your favorite quote or scripture?
Jeff Levine: Well, it’s a quote that is powerful for anybody. If you think you can, or if you think you can’t, either way, you’re right. I was brought up in that CAN’T. Now, I live the life of the CAN. Remember the CAN is the answer, not the CAN’T.
Rachel Best: I love that quote. That’s so awesome. So Jeff, if anybody wants to follow you, get in touch with you, do you have a website you can share with me and I can put all your information in the show notes so that if people want to start following you or your book, or maybe even your course, I know I’m interested in your course, so we can stay in touch with you.
Jeff Levine: Yeah The best way to get a hold of me is through email, jeff12levine@gmail.com. And the most important thing, I have great courses, but they have to be the right fit for that person. So that’s why I want people to connect with me first. I’m only here to help the people that I know I can help.
Rachel Best: That’s good because I think that’s so important that you have to be a fit, because you can’t put a square in a circle. So it’s definitely important that things fit nicely. Thank you so much, Jeff, for being here today. I appreciate your time, your wisdom, and your inspiration, and all the things that you shared. I know I’m definitely going to go back and listen to this and take notes. And thank you again.
Jeff Levine: Well, thank you, Rachel. You’re a great host. You are wonderful.
Rachel Best: Thank you. I appreciate it. Well, we will talk again soon.